


Hang on to yourself - chapter 6

by basaltgrrl, debl_ns



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-26 02:40:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/645633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basaltgrrl/pseuds/basaltgrrl, https://archiveofourown.org/users/debl_ns/pseuds/debl_ns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>  The 6th chapter of the ongoing saga. Gene is undercover to catch a criminal.  Much angst ensues. </p>
            </blockquote>





	Hang on to yourself - chapter 6

Gene's fist buried itself in Mackie's stomach.

Everything had gone a bit quiet and still, and it wasn't just because the roomful of people were all staring at him.  It was the way he got in a fight, hypersensitive and aware, light on his feet, eyes wide and breathing fast.   The rest of the world could have been waiting for him to take a step.  It was as if Mackie had stood still and let Gene punch him.  He'd do it again, too; Gene could follow up with his left, but he could tell it wouldn't be needed.

Mackie was gaping like a fish, halfway to his knees.

Carl just stood there.  Stood there with the rest of the blokes, watching, as if someone had frozen them with one of them comic book freeze rays.  Gene grabbed Mackie by the hair--it was long enough to wrench his head back, get up close with him, make eye contact.  "You bloody do that again and I'll rip you a new hole, matey," he snarled, spit flying.

"Unh, s-sorry, Henry," Mackie gurgled.

Gene released him with a shove, sent him sprawling against the bar, earned himself a resentful look from the barman who had just finished pulling two pints.  "Oi!  Watch it, or I'll have you out of here!"

Gene made a dismissive gesture and dug in his pocket for change to pay for the beer.

"Remember that, mates," Carl commented as he hefted a pint.  "Henry doesn't appreciate that sort of talk about birds."

Gene didn't, and therefore Henry didn't, either.  No disrespecting women in Gene Hunt's town--he hadn't been close to revealing himself this entire time undercover, and he wasn't now, not really, because this sort of chivalry was transferrable.  He didn't like that kind of behavior, and truth be told, he didn't like Mackie.  All bravado when he had backup, willing to step on the weak.  Ugly face, too, all nose and no chin, twitchy eyes.  What had he said?  "Old biddy," or "old tart" or some such, not the sort of thing Gene ever wanted to hear from his men--from anyone he was working with.

"Didn't 'ave to punch me," Mackie muttered angrily, belly to the bar.

"What?"

"I said--" he growled with rebellious emphasis, dark eyes snapping, but Carl dropped a heavy hand on the crown of Mackie's head, tousled his black hair.

"It's over, mate.  Over and done with.  We're all pals here, right?"  Carl pushed between them, close enough to brush Gene's shoulder, tilted his glass to clink against Gene's.

Gene pursed his lips in acknowledgement, tilted the glass back to let the golden froth slide into his mouth.  The pressure of Carl's elbow against his was a reassurance.  His knuckles tingled, half numb from the impact, the imprint of fabric on the thin skin over his bones.  It made him feel like he ought.  Drinking, joking, playing darts, getting into the occasional punch-up... it all seemed so normal, so natural, that Gene had to remind himself occasionally that the character he was playing was not, in fact, himself. 

 

***

"You've been with them for two weeks, Gene."

"I bloody well know that, don't I?"

"Yes, but... why aren't we arresting them?"

Gene sighed, a bone-deep ache where the telephone receiver pressed against his skull, as if by main force he could bring Sam into his personal space, into his head, into his arms.  Gene's temples throbbed with the haze of last night's drinking, the early morning, not enough coffee or tea on his way to this telephone box, and the sense of disconnect as he strained to hear Sam's low tones through the faint static on the line.  "Closed-mouthed bastard.  Carl won't spill any beans, gets testy when I ask.  We've had so many punch-ups, I could go for a prize fighter.  He tells me things, has me go to the bank, then to the jewelers.  Tomorrow I'm supposed to patrol the docks.  If we bring him in, he's not going to talk, and none of the other scum know anything.  They're all lackeys."

"Surely there's something we could bang them up for.  What about that shooting?"

"I know we suspect he did it, but we have no evidence, Sam."

"You're turning into me."

"Just so long as you don't return the favor, I guess I'm OK with that."

There was a huff of breath, laughter from Sam, and then silence for a moment.  Gene shifted in the phone booth, scanning the pale street outside, his stomach churning with nervous energy.  "I need him to tell me," he said at last.  "I need to know.  Until he says, he could be planning anything.  He could have hired me for anything.  I know what we think, he's a bad 'un right enough.  But we want to put him away, Sam.  We don't want to send him back to London with a slap on the wrist."

"I know.  You still havent--"

Gene groaned.  "Bloody hell, what do you want from me?  I'm going to get him.  I'm so close, I've got him in my pocket.  Unless you got something from Brian, or the lazy sods in London dug up some more information, it's Carl or nothing.  If I'm with him long enough--"

"The penny will drop and he'll kill you.  Are you being careful, Gene?"

"My own mother wouldn't let me in if I showed up on her doorstep, just now.  Ray would toss me in the cells.  No one knows who I am, Sammy-boy."

"I'm not questioning that.  I--"

"You're pushing me.  Stop it."  He didn't enjoy long-distance sniping at Sam; he wanted to have his hands fisted in Sam's shirt, he wanted to watch the flecks of his own spittle land on Sam's face.  Intimate.  Real.

"Just get what you need.  And then give me what I need.  And then come home."

Gene couldn't muster the energy for a sarcastic retort.  The suppressed yearning in Sam's voice said everything he couldn't articulate, himself, how much he wanted his daily routine back.  His own people.  His team, his office, his bottle of scotch.  "I want to, Sammy."

There was a long silence, Sam's breath uneven through the line.  "Fuck... just don't get hurt."

"Remember who you're talking to.  The Gene Genie can handle this."

***

"Be careful with it," Carl advised as he pressed a pistol into Geordie's sweating hands.

Geordie looked as though he should have been told to just keep the safety on and the gun tucked away in his trousers.  His breath came faster and the sweat stains under his armpits seemed to grow visibly.  Sometimes Gene thought of these men as children, in the same way that he thought of Chris, back at CID.  Helpless little things, needing guidance, a firm hand.  It didn't make sense on some level; they were grown men, and they weren't even his, they were Carl's.  And yet.  Half a lifetime of habit, he couldn't turn it off, just like he couldn't deny the sick knowledge that he was helping them commit a crime.

Gene slipped his own gun under the back of his jacket and rubbed his palms against his hips.  Yes, he was nervous, too.  There was no time; no time to think, no time to plan, no time to slip away to warn Sam.  Unless--it all depended on where they were going.  There was a public phone box not far from the Barclays, and yet they had cased a jewelers and several other stores in the same general area within the last week.  There might be an opportunity.

The time had bloody well come, and here he was hamstrung, unable to make any move to derail the operation unless he could slip away from Carl's all-knowing gaze.  The breakfast dishes were washed, the flat was tidy, the men were ready for the action they had been waiting on for weeks, and all he could think was how poorly he had planned this out, in the end.

"Are we all driving together?" he asked Carl, quietly.  There were seven of them, a tight squeeze if they were traveling in the Morris, comfortable but possibly more obvious if Carl opted for the battered van that had made an occasional appearance over the past weeks.  So much that Gene still didn't understand about how this group operated.  So much he should have learned.

"You'll drive the Morris, with Geordie and Frank.  I'll take the rest.  You're ready, yeah?"  Carl made eye contact, deliberately, one hand clasping Gene's shoulder. 

"Yeah.  And meet you where?"

"Corner of Cross and Market."

"Right."

There was nothing more to say.  Action, or not.  Decisions to be made.  Responses.  Gene huffed a breath, checked the pistol again, and gestured for Geordie and Frank to follow.

***

It was Barclays Bank, after all.

Gene parked the Morris around the corner, watched Carl and the other four men hopping out of the white van half a block down the street.  Shite, no time to make a phone call, no way to do anything.

"We go in fast," Carl announced as they gathered by the kerb.  "You know the plan." 

He could--he could be sick, but no, too late for that.  He could go in first--but Mackie and Frank were on point.  Carl was following everyone up; there was no place to be unobserved, no time to whisper in someone's ear.  Gene's stomach churned.

Mackie and Frank marched around the corner, and Carl gave Gene a push.  "Well, go on then.  We haven't got all day."  Gene shot him a glance.  A little smile on his face, as if robbing a bank was a joke.  Cool as a cucumber, a real professional of a criminal, this one.  Not as though that was news.  Hard man, mean man.

"All right, Geordie, let's go." 

Gene walked around the corner, warm limestone block, the sun slanting down the street making everything look newer than it really was, an innocence to it all.  What could he do?  Run away, down the street, let the robbery happen?  He pushed the door open, entered the vestibule.

People were screaming.

Mackie and Frank were yelling typical criminal shite: "Get on the floor!  Get on the fucking floor!  I'll blow your head off!"  Bank employees were shrieking, customers trying to get away, slip through the door, but that's where Gene and Geordie came in.

"Oh no you don't," Geordie growled, waving his pistol at an elderly couple.

Gene closed his eyes for just a moment in despair.  Total chaos.  Someone bound to be killed.  Another shrieking cry, this one tinged with agony.  A woman--Mackie had his arm around her neck--pale, blonde hair, fingers gone white on the sleeve of Mackie's jacket--and Gene watched the barrel of the pistol come to rest against her temple.

The world had gone still.  Quiet.  The shouts, screams, confused mutterings, all faded into the background.  Gene took two quick steps, clearing the doorway, gaining an open corridor between himself and Mackie who was still backing toward the corner of the room.  The man was yelling, spittle flying, muscles twitching in his gun arm, in the forearm half-bared.  He'd done a shite job of shaving that morning, black stubble in patches at the crook of his jaw. 

"What are you doing?" Gene said, not yelling but forceful.

"What?"  Mackie's face twisted, in scorn, in anger.  There were volumes of intent to be read in his clenched brows, in the veins popping in his neck.  In his arrogant posture.  The bone of his wrist was tight against her neck, her hands clawing.  "Bloody hell, mate, I'm--"

Before he could finish his sentence, Gene lifted his own pistol, aimed and pulled the trigger.  A small, round hole appeared in Mackie's forehead.  His eyes went wide, his arms slack.  His pistol discharged into the floor, sending chips flying.  The woman made a choking, animal noise and flung herself away from him.

For all he was primed for action, light on his feet, aware of everything, Gene stood staring into Mackie's eyes.  There was still life in there, for a few moments.  Mackie blinked.  His mouth moved, trying to form words, and then he sagged to his knees.  The gun was still in his hand.  Gene fired a second shot, center of the chest, and blood spattered the wall.

And then something hit him from behind, stunningly hard, threw him off balance, right off his feet.  His head bounced off the marble floor with a sound like a hammer on an anvil and it all went sparkly and dim, his hands seemingly no longer his own as he struggled under a heavy weight. 

"You're fucking dead, mate," someone hissed in his ear.  He closed his eyes and nodded.  
  



End file.
